


the downtrodden

by kalypsobean



Category: Silence (2016)
Genre: Forgiveness, Gen, Religious Guilt, Roman Catholicism, implied/referenced canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 20:43:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17066753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: Faith can be lost and found and never lost and never found.





	the downtrodden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linguamortua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/gifts).



** NOVITIATE **

The _Kirishitan_ God is one of forgiveness. He is God of understanding, of kindness; He is harsh, but He is fair and He welcomes His children without regard of what they have done.

Kichijiro knows this, for he always comes back, and he is always forgiven. It isn't the act of contrition or the padre crossing his forehead that tells him this; it is that despite the look of exasperation on the padre's face (and he has seen many padres, and they all look the same), the way the villagers turn away from him and leave him to himself, even his own self-loathing and doubt - despite all that - every time he feels forgiven. It's something that he can't describe too well; a lightness inside, not light but a lifting, as if through the loss of a weight he didn't know he carried, or a freedom from bonds to which use had made him accustomed. He would not feel that if he was not truly baptised, not truly forgiven; it was not a feeling that he remembered from his life before, even on the happiest of days.

And so Kichijiro braces himself against those who would turn him away, and lives on his own; he suffers the sad eyes of Father Rodrigues, and he asks for forgiveness, for that feeling, and he holds onto it as best he can, until the _fumi-e_ is brought around again, and he is torn anew between knowing God and living alone.

 

His greatest protection is this thing that tears at his heart the most, that darkness that creeps in and doesn't quite fade, no matter how close he holds the cross and his precious saints, no matter how much he prays. It is always there, waiting, and even knowing he is loved does not give him the strength to embrace it; he always remembers, and he always moves forward.

It never fully goes away.

 

**APOSTLE**

Even here, faced with shadows and open spaces as wide and as treacherous as any of Spain, it is hard to believe that Japan poses so much of a threat that it was capable of taking Ferreira from them. It is a land filled with simplicity, at times indistinguishable from home and at times so different it is hard to settle, to find a space where they can exist and speak the Word in voices louder than a whisper, as it should be. It is easy to keep the Vows, not that they are not second nature, as much a natural sign of devotion as praying or the simple act of breaking bread, but without structure, with an immediate need, there is no comfort in them.

It is in sacrifice that the Vows remind of our faith and our duty, and it is sacrifice that is always demanded.

For the first time, Francisco Garrpe is truly alone.

 

Bereft of the Hours and the impetus to keep them, he languishes, though he is not without sustenance; he says the words of the Mass over and over, holding them close as if they are tangible, solid things in a world that changes and yet always looks the same. He keeps moving; he sleeps by the road, sometimes; the shelter of nameless plants becomes as comforting as the feel of dirt on his back as his skin grows tough, his feet strong. Always, always, he looks around him, even when he must be so hidden he cannot risk a light, and always, sometimes, he reaches out, perhaps tearing his bread in two, perhaps holding out a cup, and it always, sometimes, reminds him that he was never meant to be alone.

 

Eventually, he forgets that too; he does not write to Rome - "many danger", the <em>mizukata</em> says, once, and refuses to take it - he stops trying, and then he stops asking. He fumbles over psalms when it is still dark because he is not always sure of seeing dawn, whenever dawn may come, and the Hours are lost to him before he realises he does not know the day or the month, only that his world is now the small route over the islands, one step ahead of the samurai. There is no bigger world than this, there is nothing to forgo and he has nothing left to give.

 

He does not recognise the fisherman who comes and begs him for confession; such is not unusual, for they often gather in the dark, or come from far away to beg him to travel further, to give more. But something stirs, from the way the fisherman's' words catch on the foreign tongue, as if they weren't new but still hard to form, caught behind grief and tears and honest, if simple, repentance, and for a moment Francisco Garrpe remembers how it feels to truly believe.

 

Then the samurai come.

 

**JUDAS**

 

> _Your life is with me now. Step._
> 
> As Christ Our Lord trusted in God enough to allow Himself to die and rise again, I must trust that the forgiveness I have been blessed to confer on others might yet be extended to me for this very same sin, that of denying You. In my heart I do not, but there is no way to end this but in capitulating; they will not allow me to die for You, knowing that I will be stronger for it, and there are always more of Your faithful brought before me, more than we had ever dreamed would be here, even when the news came to us of Ferreira, so distantly fantastic it was a fairy tale, a myth so obviously a test of faith I wonder I did not see it.
> 
> _I understand your pain. I was born into this world to share men's pain. I carried this cross for your pain._
> 
> _It's alright_ , I wanted You to say, to ease the burning in my heart. _I won't leave you._ I long desperately for a sign, to see You alongside me, for my confession to be heard, but I am watched so closely that You dare not come, and I fear every day that I may die outside Your Grace, truly so bereft that You have left me.
> 
> It is now I think of Kichijiro. I would hear his confession a thousand times over to spare him this pain, and wish him no ill for walking the path that brought me here, where the most I may do in Your name is to allow Your word to pass me by, and not even kiss it, or trace the scripted hand so familiar of my brothers in Rome; I exist in silence, locked away inside my heart, where only You may see me, where I cry out to You and listen...

 

He tears the page from the book and tosses it into the fire, where no trace of it will remain for his wardens to inspect. It is wasteful, but a luxury he allows himself; he imagines his grief and pain dissipating in the smoke, allowing him a brief, dreamless sleep before building anew, unrelieved by the Sacrament. It is the only sustenance he has; he determines to make it enough.

 

**APOSTATE**

He had thought that in choosing to live, he may yet rebel; a small transgression, a brief message, and the faith would survive unchecked.

They are cunning, far more cunning than those he had first encountered; he can teach them about the stars and about the body, and he finds himself unmoved by the pleas of those they bring before him, almost disappointed by their wastefulness. Those who do recant survive; they can go on living their lives in what peace their quaint villages allow; a belief is not so important that others should die for it.

 

He takes a wife, has children, and teaches the things his old faith gave him: knowledge of the world and the place of mankind within it. When he does think back, he recalls other students, and wonders which of them would understand, and which would choose to die for a hopeless, nothing cause in a land that held nothing for them.

 

It is not a surprise when it becomes known that Rodrigues has come looking for him, or that he resists; they were close, once, and it had not gone unnoticed that the scholastics worshipped him even before this mission. The distance between them, even when they dine together and he is called _Sawano-san_ without hesitation, feels irreparable. Rodrigues does not ever speak of Garrpe, though he recalls them to be as inseparable as their studies allowed, and it feels as if a part of him is reserved, closed off even from his teacher.

It is something it is no longer his place to question, but somewhere, deep in his heart, there is a stirring.


End file.
